Meet CUNE, one of Japan’s most transgressive fashion brands

When looking for clothes, if what you want is to make a political statement, or if you’d like to turn yourself into a living art installation, or simply look like a giant cabbage, this is the perfect brand for you.

Founded in 1994 by Hironori Yasuda, CUNE has slowly turned into one of Japan’s most innovative, bizarre, and transgressive clothing brands.

Certainly a position not to be taken lightly in the Land of the Rising Sun. To stand out in a country where there are all-women criminal gangs dressed in sailor uniforms, you REALLY have to be different.

During their 20 years in the industry, this label has amazed, shocked, and grossed out audiences worldwide. Their clothes seem to be a mockery of pop culture and current affairs, going as far as using plushy intestines as accessories, portraying their models with zombie makeup, or working with a pest control manufacturer to create their prints.

“What CUNE is creating is not a fashion, not even a mode. If you are to express it with words, it can barely be called clothing, the company said. “We are creating things as we desire.

“However, it does not necessarily correspond to what we actually want to wear or to have. We think nothing about who wears it, whom we want to dress, or how we want to coordinate. We do not ask you to buy. We just want you to keep an eye on what we are doing from a distance.”

Their innovative approach has been a success, having been invited to the men’s fashion week in Paris in 2014, as well as having two stores in Tokyo and one in Fukuoka. Cune was even featured in a piece by the New York Times as one of the top “Five Places to Shop in Tokyo.”

Strange and offbeat to the core, their collections are inspired by arbitrary themes and never adhere to any trend. Their 2010 line, titled White of the Eye, actually featured all their models posing rolling their eyes in what looked more like a horror film shoot than a fashion catalogue.

And that’s not even the weirdest they’ve done. In their 2013 collection, The Core of the Cabbage, had clothes that made you look like a giant hip vegetable, and for their 2015 Fugu Fugu line, they had all their models posing like cats.

I don’t even know what their 2017 collection is about. They only feature pictures of electric room heaters and box fans on their product page. What’s in Japan’s water that makes them do so many awesome, crazy stuff?

About the author

Filmmaker. 3D artist. Procrastination guru. I spend most of my time doing VFX work for my upcoming film Servicios Públicos, a sci-fi dystopia about robots, overpopulated cities and tyrant states. @iampineros